Angry_Graybeard says... #2
I would add in some more land to AT LEAST get to 35. I know you have mana doods, but 1 or 2 board wipes and there goes mana production.
I see you're at 109 cards now with only 29 land. Before I mention cards that really should be in here, I would cut Drain Life, Hymn to Tourach, Bottomless Pit, Yawgmoth's Bargain (this card is banned by the way, for good reason), Blightsoil Druid, Lys Alana Bowmaster, Elves of Deep Shadow, Hypnotic Specter, Hag Hedge-Mage, Specter's Shroud, maybe Innocent Blood.
Nath's two best friends in the world are Unnerve and Syphon Mind.
I see there's a forestwalk thing going on, but I don't think I saw anything that turned a land into a forest?
April 16, 2012 12:24 p.m.
CommanderFun says... #3
Thanks so much for the input guys! I made most of the changes you all suggested. yeah Angry_Graybeard... it was tough getting down from 109. I did realize that Yawgmoth's Bargain was banned just before you posted that, and I considered Necropotence and Greed as replacements but decided that Tutors and Sylvan Library were enough. I'm not convinced about Primeval Titan yet, even though he can get non-basic lands out too, but I'm try running him for a bit and see how I like it. I understand that the land count is still pretty low at 31. but I'm pretty confident with the general low casting costs of all my creatures, not really needing too much in the first place. The mass mana elves would be sooo much better if I could have access to casting more elves from my deck or drawing more cards (why I considered Greed). perhaps a Glimpse of Nature?? I'll try testing them out a bit. thanks again!
April 16, 2012 1:54 p.m.
Angry_Graybeard says... #4
Just out of curiosity, did you plan for your wife to use it so you two can just play or was it meant to be played in a regular multiplayer game? A lot of the changes I recommended was for multiplayer games.
If I was to do a Nath EDH deck, I'd run discard->tokens->pumps then roughly some combination of 14 draw/ramp/misc. stuff. (I love Greed by the way. Old school hotness.) On a side note, if you have a Glimpse of Nature, ok cool. If not, it's a pretty pricey card. I personally wouldn't use it since Nath is relying more on tokens than casting creatures.
And not to throw even MORE cards your way, but something like Parallel Lives would be cool in here. I forgot Geth's Grimoire is like...the best thing ever for Nath. And Vulturous Zombie would be REALLY awesome. (I know you are sticking to elves, but that was just food for thought)
Lastly, one problem I tend to see with Nath decks is people run out of cards in hand at a certain point so you don't get as many tokens consistently.
April 16, 2012 2:22 p.m.
CommanderFun says... #5
I agree that opponents with no-hands is a problem with any discard EDH. Memory Jar, Anvil of Bogardan and Quest for the Nihil Stone are a couple of answers to that problem but I'll have to just try things for a few days before I add more fixes. I do have a Glimpse of Nature but your suggestion of the Geth's Grimoire quickly replaced that idea. I decided to take out the Mosswort Bridge and the Howltooth Hollow because whenever I used them I found that the spell options only cost 3 or 4 at most, and I'd rather just hard cast them with all the mana ramp I have, so I just replaced them with a swamp and forest. As for the forestwalk, I am throwing in a Mystic Compass as an experiment.
And lastly, to satisfy your curiosity, this is definitely a deck for multiplayer. We may play one on one occasionally, but we already play cube so much with our neighbors that it makes more sense to build it around a multiplayer setting.
Oh and I took out some of the raise dead stuff and put in some pro token stuff instead... like your Parallel Lives suggestion.
April 16, 2012 6:46 p.m.
CommanderFun says... #6
Just added Prowess of the Fair and Living Death to guard against wipes... which I found was a big weakness while testing. Also I added a few lands I thought important: Grim Backwoods, Woodland Cemetery and Mutavault.
April 17, 2012 5:53 p.m.
I really like the creatures you have here. But Ambush Commander is sooo risky. You mentioned you already have a weakness to board wipes, with him in play your opponent gets a free Armageddon. Losing all your creatures and lands, not much you can do to recover from that. And since they're only 1/1 ones (as opposed Liege of the Tangle's 8/8s), if you attack with them you'll lose land. You'd need an Overrun or Triumph of the Hordes to combo with that.
April 17, 2012 6:37 p.m.
CommanderFun says... #8
KevinLS... you're right. Ambush Commander is risky, and a greedy card. I switched it out for Lys Alana Bowmaster to try it out because I realize there isn't much protection from flying. Also I like getting away from a 5 mana cost elf :). I am also considering finding a place for Lys Alana Huntmaster and Lys Alana Scarblade. Thoughts?
April 18, 2012 1:46 a.m.
CommanderFun says... #9
...to add more protection, I put in Steely Resolve and Aspect of Mongoose. I took out the cards Mind Slash and Mystic Compass (even though I was starting to get attached to that weird card lol).
April 24, 2012 1:42 a.m.
Liliana of the Veil would be ridiculous. In a 4-way game, you'd get 3 Elf Tokens for essentially nothing.
Drop the Vivid Lands. There's literally no reason to run them in 2-color decks. They only slow you down.
April 24, 2012 2:55 p.m.
And Mind Slash should definitely be main-board. With Nath of the Gilt-Leaf out, you have infinite discarding. Sac a non-Nath creature, make them discard, sac your token, make them discard, sac your token, make them discard, etc.
April 24, 2012 2:57 p.m.
CommanderFun says... #12
yeah zandl I keep going back n forth between Liliana of the Veil and Liliana Vess. I had veil in for forever and recently switched to vess for her tutor ability... I miss the all discard. I also JUST took out Mind Slash to put in some creature protection (Asceticism and Steely Resolve). I figured that, instead of Mind Slash, I'd just use Sadistic Hypnotist who is so much easier to get in play from the library with green since he's a creature (Primal Command, Fauna Shaman, Survival of the Fittest and sometimes even Hell's Caretaker). It is indeed nice having both though... as always it's hard to take things out. I'll definitely consider putting them back in... in fact I'm already thinking you're right about switching out the veil and the vess. :)
April 24, 2012 4:18 p.m.
Why not just use both Lilianas? They're both certainly worth using.
April 24, 2012 7:31 p.m.
CommanderFun says... #14
Decided to take zandl's advice and switch out Necrogen Mists for Liliana of the Veil since they have similar effects except veil gives you more control over the discarding, plus Necrogen Mists or Bottomless Pit can become annoying sometimes. Also, since I seem to be focusing on defensive strategies now, I'm trying to see if there was any need for a Lightning Greaves or a Darksteel Plate. (should I switch out Asceticism?)
April 26, 2012 11:55 a.m.
Lightning Greaves and Darksteel Plate are defensive. They protect Nath and keep him in play.
April 26, 2012 3:23 p.m.
CommanderFun says... #16
OK... so... I took out Wirewood Herald for Demonic Tutor; Asceticism and Steely Resolve for Lightning Greaves and Dense Foliage; Essence Warden and Copperhorn Scout for Seeker of Skybreak and Wirewood Symbiote... and lastly I put Mystic Compass back in and took out a Vivid Marsh.
Rationale: Switching Demonic Tutor for Wirewood Herald seems obvious its just better and instantly gratifying... plus I needed more ways to get my artifacts. As for Lightning Greaves I like the protection AND the haste and how I can switch it around my guys for a zero equip cost (plus Asceticism costs a lot). Also, since I have no "spells" that target "creatures" in my deck, I thought I'd switch out Steely Resolve for Dense Foliage and mess with my opponents, while relying more on Eladamri, Lord of Leaves (+Lightning Greaves = nice) who's easier to get out anyway with elf tutors. Lastly, I decided having more utility and synergy could be achieved with more immediate untap mechanics than Copperhorn Scout by using Wirewood Symbiote and Seeker of Skybreak (we'll see after testing if Seeker of Skybreak + Wellwisher > Essence Warden). Lastly I took out Vivid Marsh (half of zandl's suggestion) and put Mystic Compass BACK in because (a) I found myself wanting to use forestwalk more than Taunting Elf, (b) it has protected me against Wasteland more than once, and (c) I'm completely insane and I like obscure cards ;P
April 27, 2012 12:35 p.m.
CommanderFun says... #17
Now I've tried adding some of my Avacyn cards. I'm currently testing out Descendants' Path and Primal Surge. So in the meantime I took out Mind Shatter and Birchlore Rangers (were those good choices?). OH also I opened up a Cavern of Souls today in a pack and put that in instead of my Vivid Grove (at least to speed things up... ;D thanks zandl). in light of these new Avacyn cards having the need to draw permanents/elves from on my library, I put in a Worldly Tutor and switched out Regrowth for Reclaim (that may seem dumb but I actually don't have a Regrowth anyway... so if it ends up working out better then it saves me monies.) AND finally decided forestwalk mechanics aren't helping me as much as I thought so I took out the Mystic Compass and the Elvish Champion (ouch) and put in two more lands because... well everyone was right and I needed more land... so there you go peoples (especially Angry_Graybeard)! you were right, and I was wrong!
May 7, 2012 11:07 p.m.
The deck I use (Green Smash) is salivating on getting a juicy Primal Surge soon (I'll remove 3-4 more instants and 0-2 sorceries, as long as I don't need too much protection from flying). But you have 13 other stop signs, so I think you're gonna be frustrated a lot when you hard-cast it for 10. Non-permanents seem key to work with your discard strategy, so I don't think that's really a good inclusion.
May 8, 2012 7:06 a.m.
It'd probably be too difficult a combo to include, but thought I'd mention that Craterhoof Behemoth would love Ambush Commander. That's a pretty definite win combo. I think you'd have to use Tooth and Nail or other tutors to do that.
May 8, 2012 7:10 a.m.
no Eyeblight's Ending? Always a good way to take out a creature.
May 23, 2012 2:46 p.m.
CommanderFun says... #24
dethjakal: I decided to use Lys Alana Scarblade instead of the card:Eyeblight's Ending. Generally speaking (very generally) I prefer a permanent to do the job rather than a single spell in EDH because I have mechanics to use it over and other.
June 6, 2012 1:56 p.m.
Bloodgift Demon interacts extremely well with Nath. I've used the two of them to great success in cube drafts.
KevinLS says... #1
put in the Treetop Village and get a Mosswort Bridge. Your creatures may not be so big, but you'll likely get 10 power on the board at some point. It's a free card. I realize you're going for elves, but it's hard to leave out Primeval Titan, especially when you've got ways to tutor him already.
April 16, 2012 11:47 a.m.